Once upon a midnight dreary...

So, the other night we were sitting in monkeyboy's car and I was telling him about something that had happened a couple nights previous. I was drunk during the telling, the only reason I was brave enough to disclose what otherwise might have seemed a complete and utter flight of fancy. The look on his face said he thought that's exactly what it was and that he adored me for my "imagination."

On the night in question, I was laying in bed next to Mr. HeartThrob who was snoring loud enough to shake the building or at least be heard in the newly-occupied condo next door. I wasn't really feeling all that badly about it, though, because these guys bang their cupboard doors from 1 a.m. until 5 a.m. regularly. Folks, who needs to get into a cupboard every fifteen minutes for 4 hours straight at that time of the night???

Anyway, mb was snoring, neighbor was banging (cupboard doors, pervs) and I was laying on my side facing the sliding glass door to the balcony that overlooks the Lucy Lamp and surrounding trees, realizing that counting sheep was sooooo not doing the trick, and I was getting crankier by the minute which was turning into an hour, then hours and at about the two and a half hour mark, I saw something just above the Lucy Lamp that gave me pause.

The Lucy Lamp, if you don't know, gives off a warm soft glow, but its range is limited and the trees are well outside that range above about 20 feet. And there, at about the 30 foot mark is where I saw something of interest.

I thought at first that it must be a moonbeam; if you've ever seen one, they are a delight to see, a silvery shimmer with the look of insubstantiability - this is a false illusion, though, cuz I've danced UP a moonbeam, but that was another night and another room and I am still quite amazed that I had the courage and fortitude to actually dance on something so clearly not of this world and with no appearance of stability whatsoever. What can I say? Sometimes I'm incredibly brave...

However, on this night, the light that started as a twinkle, was not a moonbeam, as there was no moon which is likely why the fairies thought it the perfect night to have a party.

And there, in the trees above the Lucy Light, the fairies began to appear, one, then three, then seven more, until the trees were lit with their gossamer shapes dressed in their finest party-wear and wearing, truly, THE most ridiculous hats you've ever seen! One fairy had a firefly tied to a string and he was flying the creature like a frikkin' kite! Another walked the bough on stilts, all the way to the very end where he bounced up and down trying to shake the fairy on the end from her precarious perch.

SHE just laughed a tinkling, crystally sound, and the fairy on stilts took a great leap to land upright and steady on a HIGHER bough, to the laughter and applause of those fairies watching.

There were fairies drinking ambrosia from tiny coralbell cups and fairies kissing and hugging, and fairy children running with trails of tiny fairy sparks showering down to the ground around the Lucy Light where they lay until their own sparkly lights faded. And there were ancient fairies, shimmery white beings of infinite beauty and faces showing incredible wisdom, and there was joy. And it struck me quite suddenly that the creators of Cirque du Soleil have seen the fairies, the truth (quite frankly) is in the pudding.

And, I told monkeyboy all of this and about the fairy that even had the audacity to light upon OUR BALCONY, where it snagged a tomato blossom right off MY tomato plant and plunked it atop his head and then stuck his sassy little fairy tongue OUT at me before doing a double backwards flip onto the edge of the balcony and off into nothingness where a slight breeze caught him and whisked him in a whirling dervish of showering sparkles back up to the highest branches of the trees that tower over the Lucy Light.

And then, as quickly as they'd appeared, the lights began blinking out, and then it was morning and I questioned my own sanity as I sometimes do, but only for the briefest moments.

So, the next night, I got drunk and told the story and when I was finished, we got out of the car and monkeyboy came around and kissed me and said he loved the way I told stories and I said, "You don't believe it really happened do you? You don't believe I saw the fairies!" And he said in an adoring yet totally placating fashion, "Of course you did, dear." And I said, "See? Right there, see the Lucy Light? That's where they were! Right there above the Lucy Light!" And then I stopped and looked down and there on the ground was a tiny piece of shiny red confetti. And I picked it up and put it into his hand, and I'm not entirely sure what he thought then but his look was not so placating and he carefully tucked that tiny piece of confetti away. When he could have just as easily thrown it in the trash...